


feel you crash over me

by dutchydoescoke



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 18:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9670505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchydoescoke/pseuds/dutchydoescoke
Summary: He hadn’t planned on getting back in a jaeger ever again, not after the incident that left him without a partner and nursing a fucked-up arm.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I’m shameless. *shrugs* Title from David Cook’s “Fade Into Me”, which is a song about drifting, I swear to god.

He hadn’t planned on getting back in a jaeger ever again, not after the incident that left him without a partner and nursing a fucked-up arm. Work on the Wall wasn’t great, wasn’t _useful_ , but it gave him something to do and enough to eat. Enough to drink to drown out feeling his partner die.

But at least he wasn’t getting back in a jaeger.

Trust Sam Chisolm to fuck that one up.

He met Billy Rocks in the Kwoon, after watching Billy flatten every partner he was introduced to. Sam whistled to get Billy’s attention and Goodnight couldn’t help but grin. Billy looked _bored_.

“Billy Rocks, Goodnight Robicheaux. Don’t ask for his first name.”

Goodnight’s grin widened and he took his boots and socks off, setting them on the step with his jacket and sweater. He took the staff Sam offered, twirling it a little and stepping out onto the mat.

“You know the rules. First to four wins.”

Goodnight took his stance and swung at Billy, who just stepped into it, giving him the point.

This was going to be _fun_.

Billy swung at him and he blocked, knocking the staff to the side. Billy was faster, and Goodnight found the end of the staff inches from his nose.

“One-one,” Billy said, a smirk on his face warning Goodnight to not get smug. Goodnight swung again, tapping it against Billy’s side when Billy had his own staff tucked against his side. The stubborn look on Billy’s face told him that Billy had given him that point, too.

He felt the rush under his skin when they found a rhythm, staves tapping against each other while they dodged and swung. Billy’s second point was preceded by him proving how little he was trying by all but skipping across the mat.

He couldn’t have helped the smile that broke out, even if he wanted to, especially when Billy knocked him back and took the lead. The feeling of matching someone in compatibility was one Goodnight had forgotten in the wake of losing his partner and he loved the reminder.

He matched Billy, swing for swing and step for step, parrying all of Billy’s strikes and Billy dodging all of his. The longer they went without successfully striking, the easier he could read Billy’s movements.

Goodnight managed a third point before Billy pinned him, his leg tangled around Billy’s staff and arm. Billy leaned over him, panting from exertion, breath in sync with his, and Goodnight stared at him. He could still feel their rhythm, tapping against his bones, matching his heartbeat, and he knew, he _knew_ , that Billy felt the same way.

“Well, then.” Sam’s voice was a bucket of ice water, pulling him out of the world he and Billy had ended up in, separate from everyone else. Billy let him go and Goodnight rolled to his feet, leaning on the staff.

He hadn’t felt like that in years. His previous drift partner hadn’t matched that. It was the closest he’d gotten to drifting since Knifehead had ripped his jaeger apart five years ago.

“Neural handshake test in two hours. See both of you then,” Sam said before turning and walking away.

Goodnight looked over at Billy and grinned, mirroring Billy’s smile. They’d get along fine.

\---

There were two other jaeger teams in the Shatterdome, and Goodnight met both of them on the way to suit up.

The first pair was Emma and Teddy, pilots of Imperial Rose, first and last of the Mark V line. Emma had lost her husband in the attack on San Francisco, in the beginning. Vengeance was far from the worst thing Goodnight had seen people carry into the drift, and if Emma and Teddy ever didn’t get along, it was at a far, far lower volume than Lucky Seven’s pilots.

Faraday and Vasquez were the pilots of Lucky Seven, a Mark III rust-bucket held together on a hope and a prayer. Goodnight had no idea how they drifted when they seemed to be at each other’s throats most of the time, loud arguments held in a mishmash of English and Spanish that left bystanders scrambling for cover in the mess, but they had one of the best kill counts in the Corps.

The drivesuit felt a little tighter than they used to, proof he’d been out of the game too long. But Sam called and he couldn’t help but answer, making good on a promise made in a dirty, backwater bar in Anchorage eight years ago on down time, after they’d discovered the hard way that, for all he and Sam got along, it didn’t always translate to compatibility.

Getting into the jaeger was a trip and a half, memories he’d buried at the bottom of a bottle or under a few thousand tons of concrete coming to the surface. Billy was already there, helmet on and messing with the console.

“I do hope you don’t mind if I take the left,” Goodnight said and Billy shrugged.

“It’s fine.”

And then Red’s voice was over the comms, counting down to the neural handshake and reminding them to not chase the rabbit, like Goodnight really needed the reminder.

It was a mess, in his head, meshing with memories that aren’t his own, in a language he was understanding better the longer he spent in the drift with Billy. Flashes of Billy at school, with siblings, meeting in the Kwoon. His own memories flashed by until he was left in the present, Billy in his head, and feeling the jaeger come to life under his feet.

_Right arm calibrated._

Goodnight’s arm came up and his hand formed a fist, all of them Billy’s movements, and felt his half click into place in his head.

_Left arm calibrated._

He swung his left arm up and shifted into a fighting pose, Billy’s movement alongside him seamless.

He looked over at Billy and froze, falling into the memory that surfaced of a different day in a different jaeger, feeling Knifehead tear him apart. He didn’t see Billy, just the gaping space where his partner used to be. His arm burned, like the drivesuit was sparking again, in all the places where the lines were still on his body.

He could see the water outside, then the glowing blue of the kaiju eyes and— 

And then Billy was there, feeding Goodnight his own memories to pull him away. It morphed, from losing his partner and staring out at the ocean to staring through a window at a lake he’d never seen before in a home he’d never lived in. Billy pulled him back to the present, memories meshing together until they formed the control pod of the jaeger and Goodnight breathed, slow and even, and thought that this might actually work.

**Author's Note:**

> Some bonus notes:
> 
> — Grey Assassin is their jaeger name and a truly terrible reference to canon. Imperial Rose isn’t any better.  
> — Lucky Seven is an actual jaeger in Pacific Rim canon, apparently. It was piloted by Hercules Hansen and his brother during the Manila fight where Lady Danger was piloted by Yancey and Raleigh. In this universe, it’s the name of Faraday and Vasquez’s jaeger, because Faraday.  
> — Faraday/Vasquez is a thing. (I have my ships, okay.) I might do a thing for them later. And Goody’s summary isn’t wrong. They mostly fight in a mix of Spanish and English at a very high volume and tend to throw things at each other at a very high velocity. Nobody knows for sure if they’re doing it to fuck with people or not. (Spoiler alert: they totally are.)  
> — Emma and Teddy aren’t a thing. As of yet, anyway. That might change, I dunno.  
> — Red is Done With Everyone. Forever.  
> — Not mentioned in this fic: Horne, who I managed to resist the temptation to make him Hannibal Chau. It was so hard oh my god. He works as a mechanic on jaegers.   
> — There is also a sparring deleted scene in my google docs that took a distinctly NSFW turn and was trimmed from the fic. It happens. Or something. I blame some of the truly inspiring Mako/Raleigh fics out there. Y’all know the ones.


End file.
